Food Rules, Rule Number Eighteen

March 29, 2010

photo by Adam Ciesielski

A rule that you might not have considered before. People who have to dress like this are either around dangerous processes or working in environments that are far more about production that eating. Sure, proper hygeine around food is important, but you know exactly what Pollan means with Rule 18; get out of the lab and back to the farm!

Are we tapping into the Mad Scientist zeitgeist with this rule? Sure. The irony for me is that the level of trust placed on people who dress this way to provide medical care is in complete opposition to the lack of trust you put in people dressed this way in other endeavors.

My wife and I recently saw the film Repo Men (we and six other people on opening weekend–it was quite a dud) and there is a scene that involves many many people dressed in “surgical” wear. It was interesting to note that, as in the photo here, surgical wear is actually quite dehumanizing, removing all but the eyes from the person in question. In the film they wound up looking more like a horde of robots than actual people. Food created in labs also often lacks “the human touch,” certainly as opposed to buying from a farmer or her family at a market.